Reinier Paping, the winner of the most heroic competition in national sports history (the 1963 Elfstedentocht) has passed away. His family informed the NOS on Monday. Paping turned 90 years old.
Sports editor
Latest update:
20:21
Paping won the Elfstedentocht on January 18, 1963, under very difficult conditions. There was talk of ‘the Hell of 1963’. At the start it was 18 degrees below zero, with an ice cold easterly wind. Paping finished the tour after 10 hours 59 minutes in Leeuwarden, 22 minutes ahead of his first pursuer, Jan Uitham. He didn’t get rich. According to tradition Paping, raised in a family of nine children, received two annual tickets for the ice rink in Deventer and a silver cigarette box.
Paping, who previously hardly belonged to the list of contenders, would later say that he had never experienced anything like this again. As the ride progressed, the ice deteriorated and the snow obscured the view of the participants. Several times Paping asked a spectator how far it was. “Sometimes it was still 6 kilometers, then suddenly 8”, he said later.
Earlier this year Paping celebrated his ninetieth birthday and in conversation with this site looked back extensively on ‘the Hell of 1963’. ,,I felt the best that day and was not afraid of anyone, thanks to a very good condition. I had trained very hard for that trip. It will never be as hard as it was then, I am sure of that.”
Comments
Wiebe Wieling (Chairman of the Royal Association De Friesche Eleven Cities): ,,Reinier Paping has always been the imagination of the ‘Tour of Tours’ and always will be. In addition, he was a very amiable person. His performance in 1963 was unprecedented, almost inhumane, when out of 10,000 participants only about 100 finish and he did it in such a fantastic way.”
Henk Angenent (winner of the Elfstedentocht in 1997): ,,Reinier Paping is an icon of Dutch sport and an icon as a person. I wasn’t even there in 1963 and I was 17 when the 1985 Elfstedentocht took place. Then all skaters knew who Reinier Paping was. As marathon skaters we really didn’t have to mention the surnames. Reinier and Evert (Van Benthem, winner of the 1985 and 1986 Elfstedentocht, ed.) was enough. I think he and Evert and I are the same in some way. We’ve accomplished something unique, but don’t shout it from the rooftops. The Elfstedentocht is already a mythical sports competition, but the grueling journey of ’63 was almost inhumane.”
Herman de Haan (director-director of the KNSB skating association): ,,The sport of skating has lost one of its greatest icons. His victory in the 1963 Elfstedentocht is perhaps the most heroic feat ever delivered by a skater. It is not for nothing that his name appears in the media every winter, whether the tour continues or not. Reinier Paping thus, in all his modesty, became a true ambassador of our beautiful skating sport. The KNSB wishes his family strength in coping with this loss.”
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